


Keep Promise, Love

by mischiefmanager



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Midsummer Night's Dream, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:36:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischiefmanager/pseuds/mischiefmanager
Summary: “Ah, Mr. Anderson,” Mr. Keating says, “do you expect us to believe you’re the only student in Hellton history who sleeps well under that crushing weight of impossible expectations?”Pretty much,Todd wants to say. Behind him, Neil sighs.





	Keep Promise, Love

Mr. Keating is conducting class from the floor today.

Todd stares up at the light fixture directly above him for so long that spots of color burst behind his eyelids as soon as he closes them, trying to focus on the task of  _ concentrating on what you want most. _ It’s probably a lesson in inspiration or something. Making them all lie down on the floor in whatever position they normally get in to fall asleep.

“What keeps you awake at night?” Mr. Keating asks the room in general.

Charlie sniggers from the back.

“We all know what  _ you’re _ thinking about, Mr. Dalton,” Mr. Keating says in his usual teasing way. Mild, not a hint of annoyance in his voice. “But what about the rest of you?”

Todd hears Knox mumble  _ Chris  _ from somewhere to his right. He closes his eyes—looking at the light is starting to give him a headache.

“Mr. Anderson?”

Todd is starting to wonder what he ever did to deserve being singled out like this every day. Is there a glowing  _ PICK ME  _ sign above his head that only he has failed to notice? He has managed to go this far in life without attracting any attention of any kind from anyone, and doesn’t Mr. Keating understand that that’s the way he likes it?

“I uh...I sleep fine,” Todd replies. Evade, avoid, divert.

Todd tips his head back and glances upside-down behind him where Neil is lying on his stomach, chin resting on his arms. Neil is looking right at him, bright brown eyes catching Todd’s gaze immediately. Todd snaps his head back up and closes his eyes again, praying that Neil, as the only person in the room who definitely knows he’s lying, will keep Todd’s tossing and turning to himself.

Also, he feels like if he looks at Neil for too long, Neil will know what actually keeps him awake at night.

“Ah, Mr. Anderson,” Mr. Keating says, “do you expect us to believe you’re the only student in Hellton history who sleeps well under that crushing weight of impossible expectations?”

_ Pretty much,  _ Todd wants to say. Behind him, Neil sighs.

“I guess.”

“Lucky man,” Mr. Keating says, and moves on to interrogate Pitts instead. Todd isn’t stupid enough to think he’s been let off the hook—he’s sure Mr. Keating is already scheming about some new way to get Todd to stand up in front of the class and blurt out his deepest, darkest thoughts.

Speaking of his deepest, darkest thoughts, he hears Neil whisper his name softly. Todd takes a deep breath before turning to look at him again.

“Can I run some of my lines for you tonight?” Neil whispers. Todd’s neck is craned in an awkward position as it is, but he nods jerkily and Neil smiles one of his private, piercing smiles that makes Todd panic every time— _ oh God, he knows, he can tell, he sees everything…  _

He goes back to staring at the light as punishment for letting _ fond shoves and brown eyes and claps on the shoulder and thick hair and white towels wrapped around warm, clean skin _ crowd out all his other thoughts until all he can see and think and dream is Neil.

 

****

 

_ “Where art thou, proud Demitrius? Speak thou now.” _

Neil, crouched on the windowsill, cups his hands around his mouth.

_ “Here, villain; drawn and ready. Where art thou?” _

He grins, manic and fierce and deeply happy, lighting up his whole face. Todd fights not to grin back, not to put down the script and run to him and see that smile up close. He feels as if he could capture some of Neil’s joy if he just touched his lips.

Neil’s eyebrows raise slightly. How nice of him not to mention that Todd has missed his cue; to wait patiently until Todd finishes ogling him. Todd clears his throat.

“Uh... _ I will be with thee straight,” _ he stammers.

Neil jumps off the bed and snatches his script up from his desk, crossing the room to stand next to Todd, where he is sitting on his bed with his back against the headboard. This position feels suddenly dangerous, so he scrambles to put himself together. Evade, avoid, divert.

“You...you know these lines,” Todd says, closing the script and placing it next to him on the bed. “You don’t need—”

“You’re right,” Neil agrees, flopping onto Todd’s bed and kneeling to face him. “But a good actor knows the whole script, not just his own lines. Here—” Neil thumbs through pages in his script, “start with me on the top of page six.”

Todd has been working with Neil on these lines for weeks, so he knows Puck doesn’t even come in until much, much later. He picks up his script and tries to give Neil his best look of skepticism. Neil’s grin has morphed into one of those piercing, knowing smiles that Todd is so afraid of, but he looks no less happy than he did when he was bounding around the room during the fight scene.

“I’m reading for Hermia?” Todd asks in disbelief.

“You’d make a good Hermia,” Neil tells him earnestly.

Not only is Todd decidedly  _ not a girl,  _ but he’s certain he’d make the worst actor on the face of the earth. He doesn’t want to examine the issues behind the second reason too closely, so he goes with the first as a rebuttal to Neil.

“In Shakespeare’s time, men played all the parts,” Neil tells him wisely. He reaches out to touch Todd’s cheek—Todd reflexively bats his hand away because it was either that, or lean into the touch and close his eyes. “I don’t know, Todd. We should put a wig on you and see—you might even look better than the girl who plays Hermia at Henley Hall.”

As he feels color blossoming into his face, Todd immediately knows that this is going to be one of those interactions that his brain refuses to let go of. One of those things that  _ keeps him awake at night.  _ He suddenly wonders what Mr. Keating would think if he were to actually tell him that he was handling the crushing weight of impossible expectations much better than Neil’s fleeting, friendly teasing and touching.

“Okay, fine.  _ Belike for want of—” _

“Wait, no,” Neil interrupts. “I have a line before that one, sorry.” He flips to the page before, glances down and then looks Todd right in the eye before leaning forward and speaking softly.

_ “How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?” _

The blush on Todd’s face drains down into his chest and starts making its way further south. Oh, please God no.

_ “Be-belike for want of rain,” _ he says quickly, tripping over his words and focusing furiously on the pages of the script. _ “which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.” _

_ “Ay me!” _ Neil sighs, pitching forward and stretching out on his side on Todd’s bed, trapping Todd in his little corner between the headboard and the wall.  _ “ _ _ For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history.” _

He looks up into Todd’s eyes again, catching them over the top of the script that Todd is trying to surreptitiously hide behind.

_ “The course of true love never did run smooth;” _ Neil continues, honestly and openly,  _ “But, either it was different in blood,—” _

_ “O cross! Too high to be enthrall'd to low.” _

_ “Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--” _ Neil continues.

_ “O spite! Too old to be engaged to young.” _

_ “Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,—”  _

Todd has reached a point where he is too worried about getting out alive to think about where Neil might be going with this. Neil’s head is inches from his knee.

_ “O hell! To choose love by another's eyes,”  _ Todd breathes out.

_ “Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,” _ Neil reads, and his voice is so crisp and earnest that for a moment, Todd imagines him up on a stage with lights all around—saying it for an audience of thousands. In this fantasy, Todd is one of the blurred faces in the crowd, content to bask in Neil’s glory and stay in the background. 

_ “...So quick bright things come to confusion,”  _ Neil finishes. He then inclines his head slightly, resting his chin on Todd’s knee and looking up at him like a dare.

Todd strongly considers launching himself out of the bed and out the window—maybe if he gets far enough away from Neil, his feelings will just  _ go away.  _ Maybe if he is thousands of miles away from Welton, the ache in his stomach every time he looks at Neil will stay in the dormitory. Evade, divert, avoid.

_ Carpe diem,  _ whispers a voice in Todd’s head. It sounds exactly like Mr. Keating.  _ Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary. _

Oh, what the hell.

_ “If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,” _ Todd begins dutifully, sliding forward,  _ “It stands as an edict in destiny: Then let us teach our trial patience,”  _ he scoots down a little further, “ _ Because it is a customary cross,”  _ he leans back hesitantly, hoping he’s not going to accidentally crush Neil, _ “As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs, Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.” _ By the time he reaches the end of the line, he’s lying on his back next to Neil, their faces level, although Todd is facing the ceiling while Neil is facing Todd.

Todd hears Neil breathe in deeply before speaking, and then all he can think about is the way Neil’s warm breath fans over his neck as he reads. He misses the first few sentences in favor of concentrating on willing his heart to stop thudding so hard, keeping his own breathing under control, shifting and praying that his unhelpful brain will stop providing such vivid imagery of what could happen if one of them closed the couple of inches between them. He glances up at Neil to make sure he’s not looking too closely—Todd’s whole body is  _ on fire _ and he’s sure he would  _ die  _ if Neil noticed.

_ “If thou lovest me then,”  _ Neil continues, dropping his voice gradually until he’s nearly whispering, like the lines are a secret between them and the only place they’re safe is here together in Todd’s bed.  _ “Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night; And in the wood, a league without the town, Where I did meet thee once with Helena, To do observance to a morn of May, There will I stay for thee.” _

_ “My good Lysander!” _ Todd whispers, “I.. _.I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus' doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen, When the false Troyan under sail was seen, By all the vows that ever men have broke--” _

Neil reaches out and smoothes his fingers over the collar of Todd’s sweater and Todd shifts in the bed, turning toward Neil so that he’s on his side and they’re face-to-face. It’s worse—it’s more intimate, he’s redder than ever but at least he can bend his legs at the knee and duck his neck to sort of curl in on himself to hide his face. To no avail though--Neil’s hand slides up Todd’s neck, past his cheek, into his hair—and Todd’s not sure why he even bothered to try.

Suddenly, Todd remembers that he’s not done with his line. _“In number more than ever women spoke,”_ he chokes out, _“In that same place thou hast appointed me,”_ _God, I love you so much, “To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.”_

Todd feels like his pulse is shaking the bed as Neil searches his face—for what, Todd doesn’t know, but he thinks Neil finds what he’s looking for because he glances down at his script and then drops it on the bed before leaning in even closer. Todd would have to cross his eyes to look at Neil now, but he closes them instead, leaning into his terror and excitement because  _ he knows something extraordinary is happening.  _ Even Todd’s infinite pragmatism and caution cannot deny it.

_ “Keep promise, love,” _ Neil breathes out, then stops, fingers still threaded in Todd’s hair. There is a moment, an everlasting between-heartbeats second where Todd feels connected like he’s never been before—as though he and Neil have clasped hands and are preparing to jump together into a volcano.

Except that it doesn’t explode into an inferno and swallow them in magma. Todd surprises himself (and probably Neil) by being the first to lean in, to silently and softly brush his lips against Neil’s. It’s more cowardly than brave, he thinks immediately—the touch was so light that he could probably deny that it even happened if he needed to, but he opens his eyes right afterward and Neil’s eyes are fixed on his mouth.

“Okay,” Neil whispers, then he leans in and kisses Todd—truly kisses him,  _ undeniably _ kisses him. His lips are pressed against Todd’s firmly, his hand slides down to the back of Todd’s neck, guiding him closer. Todd drops his script in favor of placing his palm flat against Neil’s chest over his shirt, feeling the warmth and the pulsing beat of Neil’s heart.

Without any go-ahead from his brain, Todd angles his face to push even closer, to slot their lips impossibly  _ more  _ together—wildly, he hopes he’s taking something of Neil from this kiss, like he’s absorbing a little tiny piece of Neil’s tangible spirit and open heart—something he can treasure in secret forever. A shield against the crushing weight of impossible expectations.

It takes a moment to register Neil’s tongue sliding against his lower lip, but when it does he immediately tries to do it back. Neil makes a small humming noise in the back of his throat, trying the same motion against Todd’s upper lip. For all its gentleness, there's no finesse to the kiss; Todd understands implicitly that neither of them have ever done this before and that it's not so much about being good as being  _ close.  _

Neil shifts his whole body in towards Todd, dropping the hand on Todd’s neck to his back and around to his waist, resting on the hem of Todd’s sweater, where it’s ridden up a little. Todd’s eyebrows knit together at the feeling of Neil’s hand brushing the skin on his waist, of Neil’s thighs against his knees.

Neil draws back and Todd takes the opportunity to suck in a breath of air, rubbing the material of Neil’s shirt collar between his fingers. Neil snorts out an inelegant laugh, playing with the hem of Todd’s shirt. He dips his face down a little, forcing Todd to look him in the eye.

“Yeah?” he breathes, smiling. His face looks as red as Todd’s feels.

“Uh huh.” Todd bites his lip, trying not to grin as ridiculously as he suddenly wants to.

Neil slips a hand fully under his shirt. “Good.”

**Author's Note:**

> *slides into this fandom 28 years late* heyyyyyyyy.....what's up?
> 
> come talk to me on [tumblr](http://mischiefxmanager.tumblr.com).


End file.
